High school sweethearts... (#Wattys2017)

THAT ONE YEAR-I

                Chapter-45

            (That One year-I)

“Helium, neon, argon, Krypton, Xeon are inert gases and you find them to the right side corner of periodic table. AIEEE (All Indian Engineering Entrance Examination) aspirants should have periodic table on their tongue. And tomorrow I will ask atomic weights and atomic numbers randomly, person who doesn’t give correct answer will get 10 hits on their knuckles.”

        This was the first day in my intermediate college (Class XI and Class XII). Nisha choose her own way and made her entry into different college. Though I thought to join in the same college which she choose, but she never allowed anyone to know her college till the last minute. Eventually we joined Sri Chaitanya Intermediate college, which is the so called “King Maker” those days.  

        India is considered to be sovereign, socialistic, democratic republic, which is multi-cultural, multi lingual and whole lot of diversity in one Unity. 1600 languages and many more religions still tied up together on one basis of Unity. Still the nation is running with pandemic of caste, creed, and religion.

        This was on a global scale and on local scale the education system introduced one more important aspect to divide people and they called it “Sectionism.” Sectonism is a disease where students are divided based on their grade in 10th standard.

        Sectionism was what which I was introduced as soon as I entered my college. John was 1st section as he got 545, I was in 2nd section and Din in 4th section. I choose AIEEE as I always know IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) is never my cup of tea.

        Running an intermediate college is moreover like a black market business and never a charity for all the managements. Our college is a typical 5 storey, 10 rooms in each floor with 60 members in each class which accounted to 3000 members in one campus and over 6 campus near by with over 18000 students. And coming to the extra curriculars, boys in here have only watching girls on other campus as the prime extra-curricular as there was not even a single playground. And of all keeping boys in one campus and girls in other made the opposite poles too much attract. College was moreover like a prison where we are neither allowed to go out during 8.00 am to 6.00 pm nor allowed to come anytime in between. Punishments are quite severe for breaking rules. Punishments for students mischief is though acceptable but most of the punishments are because scoring a lesser grade in weekly exams. And this is what I call as “Selling of rotten Education(SRE)”.

        My school was never like this, we had an amicable environment, few classes and lots of extra curricular activities. I missed my school terribly, I felt I would have remained in school the same way forever. I don’t know anyone in this crowded class but all are very happy smiling and talking with each other and saying that this is the best college. If this is the best then I could imagine how their schooling was.

 My head turned heavy as I was still thinking of all this. I sat beside a person who is twice my size and another joker to my left. The joker here is Abhi, he is the person who kept me alive in this dead rotten college.

        John on the other hand has the same experience, he decided to get out of that section and sit with me. Usually under sectionism scheme of   SRE (Selling of rotten Education) , top classes have special privileges.But John want to leave all that for me and come back to a low grade section. A friend is someone who finds your sorrow and understands your pain before you experience. And he felt walking with a friend in dark is better that walking alone in light. And this is when I needed a someone truly to help me to survive in this weird world john entered my class.

        The pain caused by this college is considerably very less compared to the pain caused by Nisha. Nisha was the one whom I was missing terribly , later when I found out her college I used to look out of my college bus window daily in the morning and evening while going and coming from the college but I never had her sight. I passed my days with weekly two exams on Monday and Tuesday and listening to classes from morning 8.00 to evening 5.00pm. After 5.00 pm everyone rushed to find a place in college bus as late comers usually need to stand for almost 1hour in bus to find a seat.

        The only place where we find entertainment in college is college bus stop. A big ground is filled with 20 busses and all the ground is surrounded with different eating spots.

Adaption to various environments is human psychology and I slowly accustomed to it with quite a lot of friends all around. Walking all the way with a mini gang of friends made me little popular. Though I never tried to charm other girls but standing with them portrayed that way.

Days went on and though I was living a dead life, I write Nisha’s name every day on my mind a 1000 times.    

****

“Hold it” a girl tried to push a cover in my hand.

“What is this?” I reluctantly tried to move away.

“Please don’t make a mess over here, take it.”

“Sorry! But who are you.”

“Haha…!! I am Swetha, and you will know rest of my details once you open this cover.” Saying she pushed the cover in my shirt pocket.

“And see you tomorrow at same time same place.” She said and ran away in to her college bus.

        Din and me are having our pani puri near college bus stop, as one of my hand was busy holding the plate and other with pani puri leaving me no chance to move my hands and analysing this paralysed situation the girl came spoke with me and pushed a cover in my pocket.

                                                To be continued……….